Large-eddy simulation of wakes in an aligned wind farm

Name: Large-eddy simulation of wakes in an aligned wind farm
Uploaded: 2018-10-03T23:42:23+02:00
Channel: Richard J.A.M. Stevens
Description: Three-dimensional large-eddy simulation showing low-speed wind-turbine wakes forming behind aligned turbines and interacting with each other and the atmospheric boundary layer downstream.

This three-dimensional large-eddy simulation shows how wakes form behind aligned wind turbines, interact across successive rows, and couple to turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer.

Three-dimensional wind-farm flow visualization. Blue regions mark lower streamwise velocity. Visualization by David Bock (XSEDE, Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment).

What the visualization shows

Each turbine extracts momentum and leaves a low-velocity wake. The wakes expand, merge, and are replenished by turbulent transport from faster-moving air above and beside the farm. Farther downstream, the flow is therefore governed by the interaction between turbine-scale wakes and the atmospheric boundary layer rather than by an isolated-turbine wake alone.

Scientific context

See the wind-farm flow research page and the review by R.J.A.M. Stevens, C. Meneveau, Flow Structure and Turbulence in Wind Farms, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 49, 311–339 (2017).